Did the Great British Baking Show forget what technical challenges should be?

I admit that, after watching The Great British Baking Show for more a decade, some things still confuse me—perhaps because I encounter them just once a year. For example, Dessert Week, which has just arrived in episode five.

I realize all baked goods are not desserts, but I still don’t understand the idea of a pudding. Are all desserts also puddings? So bring me a figgy pudding means bring me a dessert with figs? Does that include Fig Newtons? Is a biscuit a pudding? Or are biscuits not dessert?

And to add to my confusion, Moyin called his pudding “fondants,” and now I’m really confused, because I thought fondant was that shitty, tasteless sheet of dough bakers on Food Network use to make cakes look good?

I don’t think I’m the only one who’s confused, though. For the second time this season (series!), the technical challenge has been designed to produce a table of bakes that look different from each other.

This was nowhere near as bad as the gingham pantry version, which was just Bake whatever the Mary Berry you want! But by giving the bakers a basic dish and letting them flavor it any way they wanted, there’s a nonzero chance that the judges are alerted to who baked what based on the flavors they chose.

I mean, did Bake-Off’s producers really think that the judges wouldn’t immediately ID the bread and butter pudding with roasted Calabrian chilis as Bobby Flay’s? That the one with sticks of butter laid across the top was Ina Garten’s? That the one with racist words carved in the crust was Paula Deen’s?

Signature ► Hiring Alison Hammond is Bake-Off’s best decision in its Channel 4 era, but I will say that hearing “self-saucing puddings” made me miss Mel and Sue and their pronunciation of it.

For this challenge, the bakers had a staggered start, so the judges could eat right from the oven. That makes sense; not telling them who’s going next was just a little unnecessary.

With so many options for self-saucing, the bakers faced a risk of ending up with no sauce or sloppy sauce. Clara’s turned into “sauce with a bit of cake on the top,” Nigella said, while she told Gabe his was too dry and “you just do need sauce.”

But the story of the signature challenge was Connie: She forgot to start her timer! Eek! And as the judges arrived, she was still tipping cakes out of their tins. Oh no, Connie!

When they cut into them, though, Connie screamed: they were perfectly baked—and she got a handshake. “It’s like a drug,” Connie said later, high on the affirmation.

Nigella still doesn’t have her own handshake, but I loved how Gary is walking around offering Doppelgänger Paul handshakes.

Technical ► Nigella tasked them with creating a bread and butter pudding, which she told them, “do not overwhelm it”—and by that, she meant with the flavors they added from the Gingham Pantry™.

I laughed when Clara said, “I can accept your beans on toast—but this, really?”

After picking toppings, Mo said, “I don’t know why I picked blueberries,” and added, “I might just snack on them.” He’s quickly turning into Eeyore. He also made me laugh when he deadpanned to Noel that the bread-and-butter is “a war recipe.”

Connie placed second and Gary was first; the olds—I mean, “the mature students,” as Noel called them—knew how to bake these.

Showstopper ► A dessert trolley display, which then was sent down a track toward either 1) Paul or 2) Alison, Nigella, and Noel, and the bakers had decided which one to smash it into. Oh wait, that’s the Trolley Problem.

This “a bit retro” challenge from the 1970s gave the producers an excuse to show us young Paul Hollywood with a cat (aww) and young Nigella (who looks exactly the same today). And the bakers had to produce a bunch of puddings (?) and display them on a cart.

Yannis told Paul he was using Mary Berry’s “queen of puddings” recipe. Noel made sure Paul felt the dis: “Look at him, livid. All he can think about is Mary Berry.”

But I wish someone gave Paul shit for what happened later. “You’ve got to walk the walk,” Paul said, and Nigella modified it: “You’ve got to bake the bake.” Paul repeated it: “bake the bake—I’m going to make a t-shirt of that.” Stealing intellectual property and pretending it’s yours? What are you, Paul, OpenAI?

Star baker/leaving the tent ► Connie won! And Yannis lost. I thought it’d be Clara who left the tent, and so did she, saying she had “my worst week.” But she also said “one sausage has to go,” and maybe she manifested that.

Yannis sufficiently punished Paul by saying, after his elimination, “I’ve been watching you since I was a little kid.” Take that, Paul Hollywood, IP thief!

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